Dinas Powys hillfort

It appears that occupation at the site ceased during the period of Roman Britain, but was re-inhabited by an Early Mediaeval settlement in the 5th century CE, who constructed further additions to the fort.

The hillfort, which was called the dinas (city or fortress) by Welsh speaking locals, is probably the reason the neighbouring village was named Dinas Powys, and archaeologists excavating the site in the mid 20th century decided to rename the hillfort after the settlement, with excavator Leslie Alcock remarking that "it therefore seemed appropriate by a kind of back-formation to restore the village name to [the fortifications]".

The eastern end in particular "is dissected into flat-topped, steep-sided ridges and hills by deep and narrow river valleys, so that in detail the relief of the south-east Glamorgan is a tangle of minor [landscape] features.

[6] Phase One at the Dinas Powys site, which comprised purely of the hillfort on the northernmost tip of the hill, began construction during the Iron Age, at some point in the third or 2nd century BCE.

"[9] "[W]e interpret [Dinas Powys] as the Ilys or court of a local ruler, with its neuadd or hall (House I) surrounded by subsidiary buildings of stone and timber and forming the centre of a variety of agricultural, industrial, and domestic pursuits."

[13] Examining the remnants of these hearths, excavators came to the conclusion that there was both a blacksmith and a jeweller active on the site, and that these skilled craftsmen were likely migrants from Ireland who had come to the area looking for work, where the lord of Dinas Powys had employed them.

[14] It was amongst some of these hearths that excavators found the burial of a human child approximately five years old, which they believe dates to this period, and that "Slight though the grave was, the body had obviously been laid out with care.

"[16] "To judge from the archaeological material which has been recovered, the main basis of the Dinas Powys economy [in the Early Mediaeval] was stock-raising", primarily of cattle and sheep.

[17] As well as eating such meat, the inhabitants of Dinas Powys hillfort apparently ate bread, as rotary querns used for grinding grain, likely locally grown, were found at the site.

Remarking as to the fort's usage in this period, which saw further defensification, Alcock noted that the "more likely explanation is that the Dinas Powys ring-work was not a fortified residence; it was a military strong-point, occupied only at times of need, perhaps by a tented garrison".

[26] The noted archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler, who would later go on to excavate the prominent hillfort of Maiden Castle, Dorset, then referred to the Dinas Powys site in the 1921–23 Bulletin of the newly founded Board of Celtic Studies.

Following the financial support of the Board of Celtic Studies, grants were later made for the excavation by Glamorgan County Council, the Cambrian Archaeological Association, the British Academy, the Haverfield Trustees and the Society of Antiquaries.